The Dawn of Starcraft: e-Sports come to the world stage

Ars's own Jeremy Reimer is addicted to StarCraft—not so much playing, but …

The lights of the metropolis shine brightly on the clear summer night. Down on the bay, a crowd gathers around a giant outdoor screen. Spotlights flood the area as the audience, now exceeding 50,000 people, work themselves into a fever pitch. The two teams come out on stage to deafening cheers. Teenage girls scream as one idol from each team is chosen for the first round of combat. They each enter a booth. The music swells, and the video game begins.

It sounds like a science fiction story from the future. But this event actually happened in the past, in a place where such things have been commonplace for over ten years. This was the 2006 Proleague finals held in Seoul, South Korea. The game being played was StarCraft.

The 2006 Proleague finals. Image courtesy Fighterforum.com

When people first learn about the professional gaming scene in Korea, they typically believe it to be a curious cultural anomaly, something that could never be repeated anywhere else. But there are those who have watched this scene while growing up, and as adults have made it their life's goal to bring it to the rest of the world. They are passionate about it in a way that is inspiring and infectious. They are on a mission. What follows is a look at that mission—where it has been, and where it's going—through the eyes of a longtime StarCraft e-Sports fan.

The StarCraft 1 scene

The year was 1999. A combination of government-sponsored inexpensive broadband, punitive tariffs on Japanese video game consoles (which at the time meant video game consoles in general), and the rise of "PC bangs" or gaming cafes where people played computer games, all combined at once to create something entirely new. Local tournaments at the PC bangs grew into larger and larger events, and when the Korean TV channel OnGameNet sponsored the first OSL championship, won by Canadian Guillaume "Grrrr..." Patry, there was no turning back. Patry became the first StarCraft superstar, appearing on talk shows and being mobbed by fans.

Patry's success inspired other foreigners to go to Korea to try their luck. Some, like Peter "Legionnaire" Neate and Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier achieved some success in the early years, but when they retired there were few others with the patience and dedication to replace them. Korean StarCraft became exclusive to Koreans.

Non-Koreans players had only one tournament that mattered at all: the World Cyber Games. In the 2005 WCG USA championships, brothers Nick and Sean Plott were pitted against each other in the first round. Nick lost, but it was a blessing in disguise—while wandering the performance hall he became frustrated with the poor commentating and told the tournament manager that he could do better. He commentated the rest of the finals with an informed yet easygoing style—he was a natural in front of the camera. In the end, he was offered a job to come out to Singapore to commentate the world finals for WCG. Sean went on to beat Dan "Artosis" Stemkoski in a close game and win in the finals. For this he was awarded a trip to Singapore, where he nearly took a game off the 2004 champion from Korea, Xellos (Seo Ji Hoon). The USA finals were captured by filmmaker Brian J. Kim, and the world finals became the subject of a National Geographic documentary.

Following the finals, Nick went on to commentate other WCGs. His casts were popular enough that in 2008 the Korean Internet TV channel GOM TV asked him to come to Korea to do English commentary for a special tournament of the best Korean StarCraft players. The Star Invitational was a success, with over 75,000 views of the final match between Stork (Song Byung Goo) and upcoming phenomenon Flash (Lee Young Ho). It seemed like the rest of the world was finally going to start seeing why StarCraft was so popular in Korea.

KeSPA and Blizzard: the animosity begins

The success of the Star Invitational led to three seasons of the Averatec-Intel Classic, with Nick and co-commentators lilsusie (Susie Kim) and Super Daniel Man (Daniel Lee). However, KeSPA, the Korean e-Sports Association, put pressure on its players and teams to sit out Season 3, and when almost no players were allowed to participate, Season 4 was cancelled. Various reasons were given for this, but it was thought that KeSPA was not happy about the fact that Blizzard had been a major sponsor of the final season—the first time Blizzard had ever sponsored a StarCraft tournament in Korea—doubling the prize pool and making the tournament more attractive to players.

Why would KeSPA be against Blizzard sponsoring a tournament? Because at the time, KeSPA and Blizzard were in tough negotiations over the rights to broadcast StarCraft on television. For years Blizzard had paid little attention to the huge success that pro StarCraft had found in Korea, other than being happy that they sold lots of copies of the game there. In fact, it wasn't until 2005 that Blizzard finally released full support for the Korean language in the game!

What had happened was this: in 2007, KeSPA had started charging for the broadcast rights for StarCraft matches to TV stations OnGameNet and MBC. Blizzard argued that this money should go to Blizzard, and that Blizzard should have some control over how the tournaments were run. KeSPA refused to negotiate further, and things were at a standstill. This was a problem for Blizzard, as after a long delay, StarCraft 2 was about to be released.

StarCraft 2 prepares to take the stage

There was a 12-year delay between StarCraft 1 and StarCraft 2, and Blizzard had changed significantly in that time. There was much outcry when it was announced that StarCraft 2 would have no LAN play and would require a constant Internet connection to Battle.net at all times during multiplayer games. Blizzard claimed this was to cut down on cheating online (a common problem in StarCraft 1 was "maphacking," where people would run utilities to reveal the entire map while their opponents were still in the dark) and to allow players to follow each other's statistics, but many people saw it as a money grab, especially when paired with the fact that players living in different parts of the world were required to purchase multiple "regional" versions of the game in order to play with each other online.

Despite these concerns, anticipation for the release of StarCraft 2 ran high. When a multiplayer version of the beta was released, people immediately began playing online, and even started streaming their games live over the Internet using new services like UStream and JustinTV. There were even tournaments during the beta, like the "Stars Wars" contest held in China where players from the United States, including Nick Plott, beat the Korean team only to fall to the home country favorites.

As the game neared release, Blizzard had another big announcement. While still unable to reach an agreement with OGN or MBC, the two primary TV channels in Korea that sponsored and broadcasted StarCraft 1 tournaments, they finalized a partnership deal with GOM TV. It was a huge announcement: a global StarCraft 2 league called the GSL, with an unprecedented prize pool—tournaments would be held every month, and the champion would receive 100,000,000 Korean Won, or about $90,000 US, almost double the money that was awarded for StarCraft 1 championships. The tournaments would be broadcasted in Korean and English, with the latter commentated by Nick "Tasteless" Plott and Dan "Artosis" Stemkoski. While the tournaments would be held in Korea, everyone in the world was invited, and it was hoped that many non-Koreans would try out.

The GSL finals being casted by Dan and Nick. Image courtesy GOM TV

Blizzard was throwing down the gauntlet, effectively telling KeSPA that they intended to make StarCraft 2 a global e-Sport, with or without their help. KeSPA's response was to forbid any of their StarCraft 1 players from playing StarCraft 2 and launch a media blitz attacking the game and Blizzard itself. They even convinced the Korean government to threaten to give the game an "adults-only" rating for violence—ridiculous, as the level of violence was indistinguishable from its predecessor—forcing Blizzard to remove blood and burning flames from dead units in the Korean version.

Curiously, while most fans on English-language forums tended to be against Blizzard, people on the Korean forums were more likely to be critical of KeSPA. Still, the backlash had its impact—sales of StarCraft 2 in Korea were much lower than expected. Some people theorized that Blizzard was trying too hard to force the issue—the StarCraft 1 tournament scene had grown organically, through local tournaments organized by the PC bang owners. Blizzard wasn't helping the situation by charging PC bangs a monthly fee to play StarCraft 2, something that never existed for its predecessor.

The lawsuit between Blizzard and KeSPA could fill an entire article, and neither side is blameless in the matter. KeSPA continues to run StarCraft 1 tournaments as they have always done before, and GOM TV continues to have Blizzard's blessing to run StarCraft 2 tournaments in Korea, which are slowly growing in popularity. The lawsuit continues on interminably through the courts and seems headed towards arbitration.

163 Reader Comments

MLG was great - minus the first two days where the stream didn't even work haha. Briefing: Toss still seems to be on top, idra's still a bitch, naniwa almost had a flawless showing, kakiwa beat naniwa one game with a hidden pylon in his base. Can't wait for the next tournament.

I don't like traditional sports. I've never gotten into or really enjoyed any typical game of Football, Basketball, Baseball, etc... When I go into a bar, I would rather watch Simpsons instead of some random college teams playing each other in some sport.

I dream of the day when I can go to my local bar, look up at the big screen and see a StarCraft competition going on. I will scream and holler at the screen, chat with other guys about their strategy and finally be able to enjoy competitive games in public.

Alright, playing Starcraft is NOT a sport. E or otherwise. Chess is not a sport. Billiards is not a sport. Fishing is not a sport. I'm not saying that Starcraft isn't challenging and entertaining and that tournaments aren't worth real money, but it simply isn't a sport.